10 principles for consumer generated ad campaigns

Pete Blackshaw and Max Kalehoff have put together a list of 10 principles for ad campaigns leveraging consumer generated content, which are, in short:

1. Connect The Program To Larger Business Goals
2. Keep It Authentic
3. Be Transparent
4. Encourage Advocacy
5. Empower Syndication
6. Tap The Long Tail
7. Capture The Moment
8. Be Consistent
9. Embrace Criticism And Deprecation
10. Move From Campaign To Platform

You can find details to each point either here or here.

I particularly liked the points about making sure that whatever you do fits into a wholistic strategy, as well as making sure that you take the possible long term effects into consideration. With all the hype around this topic, I sometimes fear this tends to be neglected…

Google as a tool for a TV show

I love it. During the very prominent German TV show „Schlag den Raab“, Google became on of the things for a contest.

There have already been informal contests on the net to find Googlewhacks since nearly 5 years:

Your goal: find that elusive query (two words – no quote marks) with a single, solitary result!

In this German TV Show it was similar: The task was to find one word combination, which was put together of two words (in Germany, we can put together words to construct word combinations of any length), with the fewest hits… And it is still possible to find 1 hit wonders, even after 5 years of increasing clutter and billions of additional websites in the Google directory…

The real value of newspapers

Over at Dave Weinbergers blog is a short excerpt from a Q&A at an Edelman/PR Week Summit.

It’s about the way the WSJ sees their own new role in he whole news biz:

Gordon Crovitz, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, described how the Journal had rethought its role as a newspaper. Rather than trying to present the first view of news, the Journal assumes its readers got the news the day before on line. Instead, 80% of the articles aim at helping readers understand the news they already have.

I agree, I think the future of printed media is in the detailed, well researched and very long analysis or report of things. At least until someone develops a screen that is as comfortable for reading long texts as if they’re printed on paper.

Dave replied, that he can get a lot of expert background information on the web, through emailing lists, etc. on the things he needs.:

I can get more focused analysis on the Web. E.g., the mailing lists I’m on about Internet regulation issues gives me far more coverage and analysis than any newspaper devotes to the topic, and the mailing lists include people with great expertise; newspapers can’t compete with that.

I think we’re mixing two different objectives here. The stuff Dave reads through his lists are probably not the things newspapers want to get into in the first place.

There is a scale of depth of information. Online will be best to cover the fast, but rather shallow bits of news, newspapers/magazines will cover more detailed background information (aimed at the interested amateur), and mailing lists, forums and (printed) literature will be perfect for expert knowledge.

Joost testing new ad formats

Joost is apparently testing new ad formats:

In addition to in-stream 15- and 30-second spots, the company is serving ads in „bug“ format. Bugs are brands that appear as floaters in the corner of the viewing screen. These typically appear shortly after an ad for the floating brand has just aired.

Clicking on the bug opens a new browser window that takes viewers to the product.

Interactive television with the corresponding interactive advertising is already in use by some stations (for example Sky in the UK). You press a button whenever a red dot appears in a corner and then you get further information. But in the case Joost, you can send them deep into the web, onto landing pages, rich media experiences, contact forms, etc. This will clearly change the way TV advertising is perceived and produced!

And there is even an additional benefit:

Ads will largely be targeted to viewers based on personal and demographic data that users entered when they first registered with Joost.

Somehow I don’t think they’ll stick with only personal and demographic data. How about behavioural targetting? Measure and track what they watch and what they have clicked on in the past (and hope that it is still the same person sitting in front of the screen).